A stakes winner at 2 and 3 on the main track, O Dionysus has found running over turf a wonderful change at age 4. He recorded his third win in as many starts on the grass with a course record performance in the $75,000 Cape Henlopen Stakes at Delaware Park on Saturday, July 7.

Stretching out to a mile and half for the first time in his career, O Dionysus battled on the front end nearly the entire trip and dug in late to win by a head. He covered the distance in 2:25.99 over the firm turf while recording his third career stakes win.

Making her second career start, the 3-year-old Quality Road filly Madison Avenue shot to the front and led the field from the half-mile pole to the finish in the one-mile maiden special weight at Laurel Park on March 16, drawing off to an impressive five-length score. Carrying the colors of David and JoAnn Hayden’s Dark Hollow Farm, the Phil Schoenthal trainee is fulfilling the promise first noticed by bloodstock agent Marette Farrell at the 2016 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.

“Marette is a star when it comes to picking out horses,” said David Hayden. A friend of the Haydens, Marette made a call from the Keeneland sale. When Marette says she “fell in love with this filly,” it’s worth noting. Walking into the ring as hip 3828, the bay Kentucky-bred was very immature, but would be worth the wait. And she offered a ton of pedigree. The Haydens decided to go for it and got her $37,000, about half what they expected to pay.

Southside Warrior didn’t let a sloppy track slow him down as he rallied from last to reel in the leaders and go on to his fifth career victory at Laurel Park on the afternoon of Feb. 23. The win pushed his career earnings over the quarter-million mark to $254,521 in 26 career starts.

The 5-year-old son of Warrior’s Reward races for R. Larry Johnson and Dark Hollow Farm. He was bred in the name of Dark Hollow out of the multiple stakes performer and stakes producer Bamba, who produced seven named foals at Dark Hollow. All are winners.

Bamba’s daughter Plum captured the Maryland Juvenile Filly Championship and was named Maryland-bred champion 2-year-old filly of 2011 when winning three of her four starts that season. Stakes-placed at 3, she retired to the Dark Hollow broodmare band an earner of $128,440. The dam of a $125,000 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic sales yearling by Bodemeister in 2017, Plum is due to foal in May to Upstart and will be bred back to Bodemeister.

The 2-year-old filly CAUGHT DREAM’N is on her way to making big dreams come true after an easy maiden win at Laurel Park on Sunday, Oct. 15. Going six furlongs in her second start, the Phil Schoenthal-trained daughter of Blame waited patiently until Sheldon Russell tipped her out to make a run rounding the far turn. She took aim at the leader and dug in through the stretch to pull away for an impressive two-length score.

The win followed an eventful debut two weeks earlier in which she rallied to finish second after unseating Russell in the post parade, dropping nearly a dozen lengths back in the early running, being blocked and then having to alter course before outfinishing 10 others.

Grade 1 winner and Maryland-bred champion POSEIDON’S WARRIOR, bred by Dark Hollow Farm and William Paca Beatson, explodes out of the gate as a Grade 1 sire!

FIRENZE FIRE, a member of POSEIDON’S WARRIOR’s first crop, was tenacious down Belmont Park’s long stretch in the historic Champagne Stakes-G1 on Oct. 7, getting his second graded win in four starts and earning a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series: Win & You’re In™ spot for the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile-G1 at Del Mar. FIRENZE FIRE, a Mr. Amore Stable homebred trained by Jason Servis, won Saratoga’s Grade 3 Sanford in his stakes debut in July.

Ranked among the top-five freshman sires in the nation, POSEIDON’S WARRIOR launched his stud career at Pleasant Acres Stallions, Morriston, Fla., after racing three seasons and winning stakes each year, most spectacularly during a 4-year-old campaign that saw him take Saratoga’s Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap-G1 and finish third in the Belmont’s Grade 1 Vosburgh Invitational.

It’s been a long and wonderful journey for the family of Dark Hollow Farm’s foundation mare Safely Home, and her granddaughter Safe Journey continues to build on tradition. David and JoAnn Hayden’s homebred mare became the dam of her third six-figure sales horse as her Bodemeister yearling colt brought $280,000 during the third session of Keeneland’s September sale, Wednesday, Sept. 13. The price well exceeded the day’s average.

The handsome bay, born April 14, was picked out by Patti Miller of the savvy EQB bloodstock agency, with Justin Zayat signing the ticket. EQB has become well-regarded for its selection of future stakes horses by using analytics and sports medicine on top of horsemanship.

The Bodemeister colt has stakes horses and quality in spades, as his sire has a Kentucky Derby winner in his first crop, and his dam has produced three stakes horses from her first five foals. Safe Journey has had a stakes performer every year since 2013, as the dam of Joy, a multiple stakes winner of $245,204, 2017 stakes-winning 3-year-old O Dionysus (also by Bodemeister), who has earned $216,272 in 10 starts; and Combat Diver, a stakes-placed earner of $153,080.

Zayat, whose family campaigned classic-placed Bodemeister, said the new purchase reminds him of Bodemeister, and they know the family, having been following O Dionysus throughout his campaign. O Dionysus sold for $190,000 at the 2015 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic Fall Yearling sale, the highest price for a yearling colt in that sale. Combat Diver was a $100,000 Fasig-Tipton Midlantic May 2-year-old. Safe Journey has a stellar Malibu Moon colt this year, and was bred back to champion sprinter Runhappy.